The Grand Rapids Instituted for Information Democracy (GRIID) has released results of it monitoring of crime coverage on the local broadcast channels for May 1 through June 22. The period, coinciding with the recent increase in violent crime in Grand Rapids, shows that the media focused heavily on the increase in crime but did so in a way that highlighted “negative” stories that reported on shootings but only ran a few stories that focused on efforts to prevent crime or portrayed southeast Grand Rapids in a positive light. GRIID writes that:
Crime coverage was the overwhelming category of news stories during this time period, crime stories that included national, local and stories specific to the southeast part of Grand Rapids. You can see from the chart the amount of crime stories and compare that to the amount of election stories (88) relevant to viewers in West Michigan. That is a ratio of about 4 crimes stories for every election story. We also documented just six stories during that same time period that could be considered positive stories, or crime prevention stories for the southeast part of Grand Rapids. You can see from chart #3 that each of the 6 positive stories are based upon responses to the violence. In other words, the local TV news did not report on positive activity that was unrelated to the incidents of violence in the southeast area of Grand Rapids.
The last point worth pointing out is that the voices heard in these stories, the people who were interviewed, were primarily law enforcement and residents. The stories are reported as crime stories, but what if they were reported as a public health issue? When reporters begin to ask questions about what the causes of violence are, how weapons are accessed, etc. the story becomes a public health issue and not just a law enforcement issue.
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